QUEST OF BEAUTY

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 41, 16 August 1930, Page 26

QUEST OF BEAUTY

TOILET TABLE AS OLD AS HISTORY

Beauty parlours, with their compli-i cated hair drying, dyeing, and waving appliances, ' and mysterious jars and jjhials of transforming creams and liquids, are regarded as esesntially modern. But when she submits to the ministrations of a beauty culturist, to acquire sleekness of hair and freshness of complexion, the 20th century woman is merely following the path to beauty trodden by women since the world was young. Beauty culture has been a complicated matter in all countries and climes throughout the ages. Six thousand years ago, Egyptian and Assyrian beauties powdered their.faces, rouged their cheeks and lips, darkened their eyes, and gradually complicated the secrets of their toilets until, archaeological discoveries show, the beauty parlour paraphernalia of charmers of antiquity rivalled in luxury that of their 20th century sisters. In-one form' or another, the use of cosmetics can be traced as far back as history "itself. Egyptian tombs, elosod 4000 years ago, have, yielded vanity reticules containing all the implements of the modern manicure set; rouge of brickdust; ornamental flasks retaining evidences of beauty ointments; and pots for powdcrqd antimony to darken eyelids such, as are in daily use all over the. East to-day. ... Washes and lotions have varied throughout the ages,. and continents, from the asses'.milk baths of Poppaea, the beautiful wife of, Nero; rosewater and elderflower water lotions, and red wine- baths of th'o I.6th century;' thefrosh green oranges used as bath soap in Polynesia;, to the cast-off suako skins used by Japanese beauties as toilet preparations,.^ the belief, that when snake skin is used for washing the face, charm and allure will be added to the expressions. Eye-brow plucking was practised 3000 yoars ago, and' intermittently through the centuries. A lip-lotion is recommended in an old book published in Venice in 1510—"ashes of hairs, plucked from a horse's tail-mixed with an equal portion of honey." Far Eastern beauties at all times Jiayo found a substitute for the much-maligned lipstick of the 20th-century flapper in the scarlet juice of prepared betel, which they chew .with the persistency of an American gum addict. In the great days of Rome, scent was so important a feature of fhe toilet that

every part of the body,had its special perfume, such as mint,for the arms, and ivy essence ■ for the knees. . In the olden'days one way of perfuming a. toom or apartment , was to drench doves in essences and let them fly about. But' incense was the most used medium, as it is now. There have always been fashions in scents, just as there are to-day. Nero is said to have set the fashion for ros'ewater; Louis XIV. made orange blossom the cage; and the "Empress Josephine introduced musk. '■ ' l Make-up is always unjustly attributed to women's vanity; but if she were fatuously content with her appearance, it seems hardly likely that cosmetics would be called in to improve matters. Jezebel, who painted. her face and looked out a window, probably used brickdust, unless she knew of a strange Chinese rouge, spread oil little cards — a vivid green which turns carmine when it is moisteijed. Boiige was once known as Spanish paper, because it was sold in books of rouge-paper supposed to have come from Spain. Most powders used to be made of starch or chalk, and the Chinese idea of powdering, 'among the poor classes, is still pure chalk. In India they use yellow- saffron, and Java, the treasure house of tiny Holland, is the home of our familiar rice-powder. Care of the hair is an inexhaustible subject. The Eskimo lady usesi., reindeer marrow for pomatum. In Fiji they use scented oil. and" the gum of the bread-fruit tree as a kind of stiffener. In the Society Islands of the South Seas where burnt coral serves as hairdye, there is even a god of hairdressers, Totoropotea is his name. Permanent waving was known in the timo of Nero, according to historians, who credit- a favourite of the Emperor With having made the first experiment by remaining three weeks in a hot Eoinan bath, her hair in curlers securely packed with clay. Kohl has been used to shade and enlarge the eyes since the dawn of ancient Egyptian civilisation, and is still freely used in Oriental countries where the cult of the eye is the supreme care of a beautiful woman. In the Near East there are two kinds of kohl; 0110 made from powdered antimony, which sparkles and glistens with a myriad tiny lights; and the other soot from burnt sweet almond oil, prepared with many precautions against the machinations of the Evil One,